‘Blazing Saddles’: The “disgusting” comedy classic the studio wanted to bury
The people in charge of movie studios might know how to make money, but the majority of them don’t know how to make movies. As a result, a comedy that attained instant greatness and has endured for more than half a century as one of the finest ever made was almost buried and withheld from the world.
If anyone is under the impression that Warner Bros abruptly shelving completed films is a relatively new practice, rest assured, it is not. In the mid-1970s, the suits were preparing to abandon a finished feature because they were convinced it didn’t stand a chance of finding success, only for history to remember it as a monumental miscalculation on the boardroom’s part.
While the project in question didn’t go full Batgirl and ended up locked away in the vault, never to be seen by prying eyes, it was touch-and-go for a while. Hindsight is always 20/20, but it remains galling to think that one solitary screening for the top brass created such an uproar that the folks at the top of the food chain were preparing to cut their losses, call it a day, and flush their money down the drain.
Ask anyone to name the best comedy flicks that have emerged from mainstream Hollywood, and anyone who doesn’t include Blazing Saddles among that number isn’t worth listening to. It’s a classic, a masterpiece, a comedic tour de force, and the first American motion picture to include the sound of audible farts. Funnily enough, the latter point almost became a deal-breaker.
Reflecting on the movie’s longevity in an interview with Rolling Stone, Mel Brooks recalled how things very nearly went perilously awry. “So when his boss, and boss’s bosses came to that first screening. I mean, it was anarchy,” he recalled. “They could not believe what they were watching.”
John Calley was the vice president of production at Warner Bros, and he pitched up to the maiden screening of Blazing Saddles with people above his pay grade in tow. When they saw what their money had gotten them, it would be an understatement to say they weren’t best pleased.
“A person cold-cocking a horse? Farts? One of the guys got up and asked me, ‘What did we spend on this?’. ‘I don’t know, $2.5 million,'” an answer Brooks instantly knew was the wrong one. “So he turns to everyone in the room and says, ‘Well, I suggest we eat the picture. Let’s bury this. It’s disgusting. I don’t want Warners’ name on this.”
Cooler heads ultimately prevailed, with Blazing Saddles quietly releasing in several cities with barely a marketing campaign to speak of. Making a mockery of the studio’s doubts, it became a sensation. By the time it exited cinemas, Brooks’ comedy had become only the tenth film in history to earn more than $100 million at the box office, and it would earn three nominations at the Academy Awards to further underline just how wrong the studio was.
